Parents and Activists
by Renato Constantino
(first published by GRAPHIC in April 28, 1971; republished
by Malaya Books Inc., Quezon City, Philippines)
 
Graduation has been aptly called a commencement. It is on the
conventional sense a commencement of adult responsibility for
the young. For their parents, it is the climax of years of anxious
waiting and of sacrifices. But, if both want to invest it with
deeper significance, a commencement should mark the
beginning of understanding and of partnership with the young in
patriotic involvement.
 
We live in a period of turbulence, of instability and of change. A
decaying society leaves in its wake many dislocations, many
confusions and rising tensions. These dislocations and tensions
have been dramatically projected by the activism of militant
youth.
 
All at once parents are seized with paroxysms of fear; many in an
excess of protectiveness, have sought to isolate their young from
activist fever, while others have reacted with anger and despair.
The result is a growing alienation between parents and activists.
In many homes a bitter battle now rages between the old and the
young. The young today are so different, parents say,
bewildered; our parents are so reactionary; they are fascists, the
youth reply.
Difference in outlook
Activists have elaborated at great length on the basic issues of
our society. They recognize the main forces locked in mortal
struggle but they may have overlooked some subsidiary
contradictions or they may have not given sufficient thought to
the manner in which these should be resolved. One such
problem is the problem of the generations. It may be useful to
focus some attention on this question during this period of
student ferment.
 
Activists know that every aspect of life has a political dimension;
even the relation with one’s parents is part of the overall political
struggle. Parents whose children are not activists may view
developments with more detachment but they are still puzzled
and apprehensive. Many of the uncommitted among the young,
if they are honest and patriotic, will eventually join the movement
for revolutionary change because of the flow of history cannot be
denied. Consequently, no one can remain wholly untouched by
the problem.
 
What causes this division between generations? Is it merely the
so-called generation gap? Is it just a passing phase in the
process of growing up? Why is parental reaction one of dismay
and antagonism? Is it because of the irresponsibility of the
young?
 
The growing alienation between parents and activists cannot be
dismissed with the facile explanation that there exists a
generation gap. There is something more basic here than a
meredifference in ages or a mere rebellion against authority as
such; there is a fundamental difference in outlook. 
Asocial behaviour
 
Long years of miseducation, long years of constant subjection to
the blandishments of Western propaganda have made the older
generation unappreciative of the commitment of the young
today.
 
For a number of generations, most adults, including the parents
of today, has been concerned with the day-to-day struggles of
life solely in their personal dimensions. They were therefore
unaware of the contradictions that the operative forces of history
were building up in the society. These quantitative accretions of
events have resulted in a reality qualitatively different from the
past.
The old see social changes only in their quantitative aspects –
prices are higher, corruption is more rampant, crimes are more
numerous. Their frames of reference remain the same. Like the
young, they see the problems of our corrupt society but, unlike
the young, they offer only the same old solutions that never
worked before or else they retreat into individualism and asocial
behaviour. The activist outlook is totally different, hence the
frequent lack of communication resulting in bitter tension within
families and erosion of parental control and influence.
To re-establish communication, the older generation must
understand the basic nature of activism today.
 
Nature of activism
 
Activism rejects the older generation’s belief in an immutable
social order. Its allegiance is to revolutionary change, not to
reformism. It is disillusioned with the patchwork solutions of the
previous generations. Therefore the young scoff at parental
suggestions that they reduce the dimensions of their protest to
specific problems like crime control, the exposure of corruption
in government, or the amelioration of living conditions in the
slums.
 
They know that these specific problems are interrelated and will
never be solved unless basic changes in society are instituted.
They no longer pin their hopes on the election to office of good
men as previous generations did. They know that mere changes
of men will mean nothing.
If the same system prevails, it will corrupt the men; in fact the
system practically ensures that only the corrupt get elected. As a
result, parents think the young are impractical dreamers, while
the young counter that their parents have no understanding of
the real nature of our society.
 
We often hear older people explain that protest actions are part
of the idealism of youth. They imply that young people have
ideals but will outgrow them when, as adults, they come face to
face with practical reality. This judgment is both wrong and
immoral.
Idealism in the sense of having ideals is not something that
should be outgrown. N the other hand, philosophically speaking,
activism is not idealist; it is materialist because it is based on
social reality. It is these older people with their condescending
conclusions who are idealists – not in the sense of having ideals
but because they have unreal view of reality.
 
Some parents treat activism as they would an attack of the
measles. They wait for it to subside so the patient can be normal
again, which to them means being career-conscious, materially
ambitious, and moderately civic-minded.
 
Youthful frivolities
 
But activism today is more than a passing phase of youthful
restlessness; it is not the same as those frivolous activities with
which many of us were expected to amuse ourselves during our
school days; it is not one of those fads which produce temporary
irritations between parents and children.
Activism is a social phenomenon because it is an exercise in
collectivity, a \rejection of individualist solutions to purely private
problems. Activism is the antithesis of individual action which is
a romantic survival of the days of so-called self-made men; it is
the negation of individual ambition because a new
counter-consciousness is contraposed to the consciousness
engendered by private free enterprise, a legacy of imperialist
rule.
It is the rejection of individual ambition that parents find most
difficult to adjust to. The poorer parents, especially, find this
painfully disappointing. All their lives they worked and sacrificed
to give their children an education so that the young ones might
become successful, pore prosperous. Now they find that what
they live for is to be discarded. Instead, their activist sons and
daughters have deliberately chosen a difficult and uncertain way
of life which will bring no money, only hard work and danger,
even death.
 
Nothing can assuage the anguish of such parents – nothing, that
is, except an understanding of their children’s convictions. If
these convictions are firm, appeals to the young person’s
individual self-interest, or pleas that he think of his personal
safety would only alienate him further. Nothing is more revolting
to a committed youth than to be told to let others “do the dirty
work” and run the risks. Such a position is morally indefensible.
Young people correctly assess it as the product of selfish
individualism and social irresponsibility.
Neither should parents offer charitable activities or so-called
civic action as substitutes for involvement in the protest
movement. Activists know that do-gooding is ineffectual in the
long run and, as practiced in conventional circles, is nothing
more that conscience pacifier or a publicity gimmick for the
socially ambitious. This does not mean that activists have no
sympathy for the sufferings of their fellowmen; in fact, it is these
very sufferings that they want toeliminate. However, they know
that the real solution does not lie in palliatives but in a change of
the system.
 
Antithesis of the system
 
The youth of today are not only the products of the system; they
are also the antithesis of that system.
 
During our period of adjustment to the imperatives of the times,
we of the older generations allowed material and intellectual
influences to transform us into bases and pillars of the social
order. Young activists reject these material and intellectual
influences for they have developed insights in to the evils of the
system; they have seen fit to rebel not primarily against the old
generation as against the very system which the old seem to
represent.
 
Thus many of the older generation are appalled by the sweeping
rejection of the values to which we were all acculturized. All the
verities and the comfortable platitudes under which we had been
nurtured have gone by the board.
 
We cannot view present militancy in the same way that our
parents regarded our own youthful rebellions. For where before
youthful frivolities were merely interruptions in a long line of
continuity, today activism is definitely a discontinuity which has
accelerated a social process that is well nigh reversible. And thus
discontinuity will represent a leap in the continuity of our social
existence – a leap that will usher in a higher level of human
development.
 
Activism is a product of the great social upheavals of our times
which are mass movements for national liberation from the
oppressions of imperialism. Imperialist rule has progressively
depressed the lives of the peoples in the underdeveloped areas
of the world; it has deepened human alienation, cheapened
human life and has been responsible for the flagrant
degeneration of culture. We are now witnessing in our country
the growth of counter-forces created by the dynamics of
imperialism.
 
With the few individual exceptions, previous generations allowed
and even abetted the imposition of a colonial society in our land.
Now that the young reject imperialism and are trying to protect
the possibility of a better society for all, the old complain and
even questions the motives of the youth. A few become very
angry, try to intimidate and threaten, and even precipitate a
severance of relations. That is why many of these young people
have come to believe that parents are essentially fascistic.
 
Question of discipline
 
An important condition for understanding is the need to credit
the young with good intentions and enough patriotic dedication.
They have a right to resent bitterly such false imputations as that
they are being led astray by agitators or used as tools by their
leaders. The old should make a real effort to understand their
political beliefs and instead of condemning them outright.
 
When the young people question the political opinions of their
parents and insists on participating in the mass actions of the
protests movement, parents should not regard this merely as a
disciplinary problem.
 
It is true that a desire for independence from parental authority
may have been a factor in the initial stages, but, once convinced
of the correctness of his cause, the young person regards
activism as a patriotic duty. Part of his rebellion is directed
p[precisely against the values of the defenders of the status quo,
and the right to impose strictures solely by virtue of age is one of
these values.
Gone is the day when the older people supposed to do the
thinking and the acting and the young were expected to remain
meekly in their classes. The old have made such mess of things
that the young feel they are no longer capable of effecting the
changes demanded by our times.
 
Discipline for these young people is the discipline of their
commitment. It is a self-imposed discipline, which, ideally,
should be collectively arrived at, and which derives from the
needs of the movement. Discipline in this sense is positive, not
negative. And who is to say that this is not the higher form?
 
Reversal of roles
There was a time when the old were supposed to be wise. Today
the old must not fall in to the error of claiming wisdom as a
prerogative of age. They may be in for a big surprise.
 
A reversal of traditional roles seems to be occurring. Traditionally
the young were expected to be self-centered, intent on only on
pleasure, to a great degree socially irresponsible. The old saw
themselves as the guardians of the society, the people who
worked and sacrificed, the planners and makers of a world they
would be proud to leave to their children. Today, it seems as if it
is the old who are more guilty of social irresponsibility and the
young who have taken it upon themselves to plan and sacrifice
for a better world for themselves and for the future.
The least the parents can do is to listen to the young, ask
questions, read what they read, examine their values.
 
Since imperialism is the compelling fact of present society, and
since anti-imperialism is what animates the activist struggle,
parents must know more about imperialism. They must learn
how imperialism plunders the poor nations and what techniques
it uses to retain political and economic control of its
neo-colonies. They must become aware of its fraudulent use of
aid and its employment of cultural aggressions. And finally, they
must understand how it uses its control, made more secure by
its military might, to force nations to adopt policies inimical to
their own interest but beneficial to the imperialist.
Intensity of discontent
Many of the older generation have known economic want and
oppression in the society but they fail to attribute the suffering of
the workings of the imperialism. Instead they tend to
condemnonly the leaders of the country for the evils they see,
little knowing that these men are merely agents of the system or
oat most active collaborators.
 
Activists have dramatically brought out the fact that our colonial
condition is the root of all problems. Most parents do not
understand this. Many are self-complacent apologists for the
system. That is why the young resent their hypocritical attitudes
and their selfish indifference to their country’s plight.
 
Of course, the methods of the activists mat shock many of the
elders. There have been certain excuses but these are to a great
intent traceable to the intensity of discontent and to the futility of
the forms of the protest of which we have been accustomed.
 
It is not my intention to idealize the protest movement nor the
typical activist. I have deliberately described activism at its best
and highest level – what it could be rather than what it is – in a n
attempt to purge parents of their prejudices and misgivings. After
all, a movement’s political and ethical aspirations are as valid as
a yardstick as it presents achievements. Furthermore, I trust the
activists, conscious of the need to be profoundly self-critical, are
aware of their own deficiencies.
 
Many activists have unnecessarily alienated their parents. They
have not thought of including their elders among those who are
in need of re-education. Thus they must also bear part of the
responsibility for the tension and the alienation which results
from the lack of communication.
 
Discontinuities in continuity
 
Perhaps activists cannot be blamed completely for their quick
and total rejection of present institutions and values. The
situation is really that desperate. But they must bear in mind that
we are living in a reality which changes because of the
contradictions arising from within. The continuity of society exists
through discontinuity of basic change.
 
Radical change cannot be wrought overnight. Revolution is not a
moment in the course of history; it is a process that
encompasses broad historical periods. The new comes from the
old and negates it.
 
New institutions are not imposed from the outside; rather, these
institutions develop in the course of the struggle. That is why the
techniques of struggle must take cognizance of existing reality,
and this reality includes the very institutions and ideas that
continue to control the consciousness of the majority.
 
Knowledge of local reality
 
Activists must know their reality and work within that reality in
order to change it. Parents are very much part of that reality.
 
They must therefore struggle with their parents, not with an
attitude of total negation or in antagonistic confrontation but with
the same spirit of forbearance that they show to the unpoliticized
masses.
 
Their success in involving their parent – at least to some degree
– will be a test of their ability to rally other sectors of society. A
thorough understanding of Philippines reality will insure correct
techniques of struggle. To persist in mastering only foreign
models based on the experience of other nations would result in
a doctrinaire and sectarian point of view.
 
Theory-Practice Congealed
 
The theory that activist study is a distillation of concrete
experiences which have both universal and particular validity. If
this theory is to guide local experience effectively, it must be
applied creatively and this means recognizing its universal and
particular character.
 
The correct determination of what is applicable to the local
situation will depend on the depth of our understanding of local
reality. Later on, local experience can become the basis for a
further development of theory which will have universal and
particular validity.
 
Theory is practice congealed. Therefore, reading and studying
theory can be considered a form of practice. This theory should
guide practice, but not blindly. Our duty is to be able to derive
our own theoretical formulations from our own practice in order
that our experiences may also become of practice congealed.
Activists need more thorough grounding in Philippines history
and society. Concomitant with this weakness is the failure to
remember that, to effect revolutionary change, there is need to
rally the most diverse elements of society to form a united front
of all sectors that see the need for change. Or, perhaps the need
is recognized but there is insufficient understanding of how this
is to be achieved.
 
Some activists disdain those who only partially accept their
goals. They may have failed to appreciate the fact that the
struggle must be undertaken on various levels of consciousness
and therefore they must give special regard for allies who may
not yet have the same level of awakening that they have.
 
Internalization of struggle
 
The struggle is a protracted one. The power of the state and the
influence of imperialism still cannot be minimized. That is why
the battle must be waged with extreme creativity on all fronts and
the knowledge that a protracted struggle may consume lifetime
of endeavor. What is needed is patience, humility, integrity,
dedication, and patriotism. A resolute struggle must be waged
against impatience, arrogance, intellectual dishonesty, instability
and opportunism.
 
Changing people is a long and difficult process, for it requires not
merely change in political viewpoint but also change in character.
Part of the struggle, then, has to be internalized, since some
activists still carry with them many attitudes of the society they
reject such as dogmatism, opportunism, vindictiveness, vanity, If parents of today do not march with the youth, they will be left
anti-intellectualism and lack of discipline. behind and will deserve only the censure of history. If the youth
  fail to enlist the active participation of other sectors of society,
In the struggle with older people and with the rest of society, a their movement will suffer from a fatal distortion.
change in attitude, emanating from an internal change will be  
more effective than a thousand manifestoes. For in the behavior In an intolerable society, the task of working for revolutionary
of the activists themselves the rest of society expects to see an change is the duty and the privilege of all patriots, young and
aspect of the future society that is being advocated. old.
 
There are still many things that have to be learned about present
society. Parents may have much useful concrete in formation.
The young need all available resources. A partnership with
parents, aside from reducing tensions which impair efficiency of
activists, can yield valuable facts about specific areas of society
beyond the present experiences of the young.
 
Growing up and growing young
 
The young are growing; the old must grow young. In situations
develop and eventually fossilize and along with them the thinking
of men.
 
When a man grows old because of inability to appreciate and
adjust to changes, he becomes reactionary even if he still
regards himself as progressive because years ago he was
considered as one. To note change, to work for change, to adjust
to changed conditions – that is the mark of youth. If an individual
believes in social change, he will never be an anachronism in the
successive alterations of his social milieu.